


Rubbish Cars And Sleepy Dogs

by SkyHighDisco



Category: The Grand Tour (TV) RPF, Top Gear (UK) RPF
Genre: Baby boomer James, Family, Fluff, Humor, Uncle-Niece Relationship
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-04
Updated: 2020-08-04
Packaged: 2021-03-06 02:02:00
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,257
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25705567
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SkyHighDisco/pseuds/SkyHighDisco
Summary: James is a boomer who is hopeless with a laptop. Izzy is a Gen-Z member who can help.Short fluff. Fun stuff.
Relationships: James May & Isabella Hammond
Kudos: 5





	Rubbish Cars And Sleepy Dogs

James May blows a frustrated air out of his puffed cheeks trying to decide if inviting Clarkson to use a hammer on his laptop would actually be a bad idea. In normal circumstances, excusing yourself to another room with your laptop while visiting would not only be rude, but immature as well, but Clarkson and Hammond weren’t wrong for calling him Slow as it also applied for running late with project-sending deadlines.

Hammond’s border collie Blea is observing him from the floor where she lays with her head among his front paws, ears intriguingly moving at the man’s apparent troubles and May figured the dog was as good as anyone else for a one-sided vent.

“Did you know laptops didn’t even exist when I was a small kid?” he tells the dog from his spot on the couch.

Blea releases a short, abrupt exhale through her nose in sympathy. James tries a few more clicks, rubs his eyes from under his glasses that sting and sniffs. “I will die in a chair some day trying to figure out how the programme installing works without having to cramp the system.” He begins typing again, feeling more exhausted than irritated, which is quite a surprise. “I also remember that while they had less space, the first laptops were more durable than this garbage. It gives out after two years and you constantly have to backup data lest you lose everything you deem important. And they ran on power. Simple. You didn’t have to worry how long you still had before battery runs out. Now thanks to new ‘advanced’ technology you can’t sit on the porch and drink tea whilst doing your job.”

He looks back at the dog and her eyes are scrunched closed and her breathing is even. Great. It looks like James’ ability to bore someone to sleep isn’t just limited to Jeremy flaming Clarkson. He refuses to consider if the big cock might actually be right.

He begins clicking again, but is then interrupted by a sudden presence of a small figure who sits to his left, holding out a horizontal phone screen two feet from his face. James looks up and one of the two faces staring stupidly back at him is his own. The other one belongs to a blonde hair-framed smiling ball of sunshine named Izzy Hammond. It alone is enough for James to comply.

“This better not end up on facegram or instachat or another blasted website or so help me”, James says through a camera-practiced grin. Normally, he would tell the selfie-wielder to sod off and catapult their phone to the fourth dimension (mind you, he _does_ have a very good arm), but this is Izzy Hammond and she is practically a niece, and if she decides to wrap him in an iron armour with spikes on a 40 degrees Celsius day and put a digger of makeup on his face and give him a pink lightsaber to wield around and tell him to chase goats, he would voluntary do all of it in a beat. This little Hammond he is way too fond of, just as he is of her sibling.

“On a what?” Izzy feigns ignorance before lowering her phone and dedicating herself to doing whatever she wants with the taken picture. As soon as the phone is down, May’s face drops with it and his jaw is back to being gritted firmly in frustration. “Don’t worry, your insecurities are safe with me.”

“There’s a difference between insecurity and privacy value”, he explains.

“You don’t have privacy.”

James sighs. “Not as much as I’d like.” Rubs his eyes; his glasses are pushed up on his forehead.

Izzy does a few more types, then lowers her phone, chunking the duty of filter-editing for later. “Man up, May. What’s up? We are waiting for you, you know.”

May scrunches up his nose. “I seem to be having a bit of trouble.”

“Yes.”

“I am kindly required to edit the audio on this part of the video”, he points the finger on the wanted spot on the screen. Izzy follows intently. “Now, the sound they want is the effect you get when you’re at a concert. Or auditorium or something close to that. The echoy one. And the fact that I’m somehow requested to somehow do it is bloody brilliant.”

“ _Why_ aren’t the editing guys or whatever they’re called doing it?” Izzy wants to know.

“Heavens know. But the thing is since video takes an entire epoch to upload, I’m keen on completing this today, preferably as quickly as possible so I can join you lot as soon as possible and be done with this infernal thing.”

“If I help you, will you lend me some money?”

James’ eyes glimmer with amusement and adoration. “Which one?”

Izzy comically turns around, ensuring there is no such thing as her father spying on her response in sight. Still, she leans in conspiratorially and James does the same. 

“A _Dodge Charger_.” 

James leans away, squinting. “I’m not giving you money to buy rubbish cars. Choose more wisely and come to me in a week with adequate answer.”

“What’s wrong with _Charger_?”

“Well, for one, your father likes it.”

Dutifully, Izzy takes over the laptop and surfs for a while; her father’s eyes are roaming across the screen. May’s own sting, but he wants to pay attention even as he is sure he won’t catch things on the first try.

“Okay, for really good editing you need something called _VideoPad_. I’ve got a vlogger friend in school who uses it... Bear with me, he’s a tosser, but he knows how to do up a video, Uncle James. Next thing, for your audio problem there is a simple and really, only one solution.” She clicks over several times and gives a slight smile when she finds what she was looking for among the programs. “There it is. Every computer has to have one. It’s called _Audacity_. It’s a little old, but boy you can do all sorts of shit in there, including the magical effect called ’reverb’.”

While James has been bothering with it for hours, clever Izzy was done in a matter of ten minutes and James’ laptop is passed once again to his hands, this time with a tidily edited video displayed neatly before his eyes. James has to suppress a smile at how proud Izzy looks.

“Would you be interested in online IT classes since I won’t be able to make it here as often?”

She gives him a tight sideways hug. “ _Dodge Charger_.”

“I told you, I’m not buying you rubbish”, James says, leaning his head in and pressing a fond kiss to her cheekbone in what he holds a fair form of payment. His stubble tickles her ear and she gives a small giggle and it makes James’ heart swell.

“At least let me drive your new Toyota”, Izzy pleads, embrace unrelenting, surging warmth of genuine affection through May’s limbs. There are no words to describe how much he loves this little Hammond.

“No harm there, I suppose”, James admits, delivering another kiss on the same spot for good measure. “Now scurry back, you nipper. It’s your celebration. And try not to tell your father about my tech problems or I’ll never hear the end of it.”

She jumps up chirping out a ‘no worries, Uncle James’ before skipping back into the dining room with vigor and youth James could only melancholically recall from already vague memories, but heck, he’s smiling anyway.


End file.
